On the other hand, the gentle, lovable Duchess was born for the cloister and for the worship of the Mass. Her bare feet were ever moving in penitential pilgrimages and religious processions, and her shapely hands were ever joined in prayer or divided in charity. Her passion was the submissive rule of Christ, her will the conquest of herself.
Daring and devotion thus harnessed together rocked the family cradle, and insured for their offspring the best of two worlds. Such a union was bound to be productive of genius and corrective of faults of heredity. What a bitter disappointment, then, it must have been for both the Duke and the Duchess when one after another their beauteous babes and adolescent sons dropped like blighted rosebuds from their young love’s rosebush prematurely into the cold, dark grave, leaving only the aroma of their sweet young lives to soothe their sorrowing parents!
Isabelle was the fairest daughter of the three. She inherited the force of character of her father and the pious disposition of her mother, and to these precious traits she joined a spirit of intelligence much in advance of her years as a growing girl. In short, she was remarkable “pour ses qualités de l’esprit et du cœur,” a description difficult to render into good English; perhaps we may say she had her father’s will and her mother’s love.
Many were the suitors for her hand, some for the pure love of beauty, grace, and spirit, but most with a view to the Duke-consortship in the future of rich Lorraine. The “Pride of Lorraine,” indeed, served as an ever-reinforced magnet. She became remarkable for her loveliness of person, her animation of manner, and her distinguished carriage. The natural sweetness of her voice lent a gracious persuasiveness to her eloquence, which in later life proved invaluable in the recruiting of adherents to her husband’s cause. High-souled and condescending, she brought her enemies to her feet, only to raise them her warmest friends. Talented beyond the average of Princesses, she had also the charm of winsome gaiety, and proved herself a worthy spouse and companion for her gallant and clever consort René. Tall, slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a skin of satin softness, the “Pride of Lorraine” won all hearts and turned many a head.
To Louis, Cardinal de Bar, was due the accomplishment of an idea suggested by Queen Yolande with respect to the future of her second son, René d’Anjou. He had for ever so long been considering what steps he should take with respect to the succession to the duchy. He of course, as an ecclesiastic, could have no legitimate offspring. His brothers had died childless, and only one of his sisters had male descendants, the grandsons of Violante de Bar, his own grand-nephews. In His Eminence’s mind, too, was a project to reconstitute the ancient kingdom of Lothair by merging Barrois and Lorraine proper. Whilst Duke Charles II.’s young sons were living, the Cardinal looked to one of them as his heir; and when they all drooped and died, he reflected whether or not he should name Charles as his successor. At this juncture his niece, the Queen of Sicily-Anjou, was busy looking out for brides for her two elder sons, Louis and René. For the former a Bretagne alliance was indicated; for the latter a union with Lorraine—Burgundy for the time being out of the question—or Champagne seemed desirable.
The Cardinal clinched the matter, and paid a visit to the Duke of Lorraine in furtherance of his project, which was the very natural and sensible one of marrying his nephew René with the Duke’s eldest daughter Isabelle. Whether Charles had any inklings of the Cardinal’s cogitations with relation to his own position with respect to Bar we know not; but possibly he had, for he met the proposition with a direct refusal. He read to his relative two clauses of a will he had recently executed, which forbade his daughter Isabelle to marry a Prince of French origin, and especially barred the House of Anjou. This latter prohibition was inserted with reference to the rupture between Jean “sans Peur,” the Duke of Burgundy, and Louis II., King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou, which resulted from the part the former had played in the assassination of the Duke of Orléans in 1407, and the consequent repudiation of the betrothal of Catherine de Bourgogne and Louis d’Anjou. Lorraine and Burgundy were in close alliance.
The Cardinal, however, was not to be diverted from the course he had taken. He placed ten considerations before the Duke and his advisers:—(1) The advisability of reuniting the two portions of Lorraine; (2) Charles’s lack of male heirs; (3) his own incompetence in the same direction; (4) his choice of his grand-nephew, René d’Anjou, as his successor at Bar-le-Duc; (5) the attractive personality, mental attainments, and high courage of the young Prince; (6) his descent from a Barrois-Lorraine Princess, Violante, his sister; (7) the risks of the application of the power of the Salic Law over his daughters; (8) the equality of age of René and Isabelle; (9) the wish of the late King and of the Queen of Sicily-Anjou for an alliance with Lorraine and a better understanding politically; (10) the welfare of the peoples of the two duchies and the love of the Lorrainers for their princely house.
Charles asked time to consider these points, but meanwhile he summoned the Estates, and laid before them a proposition concerning the succession to Lorraine at his death. He named his eldest daughter as Hereditary Duchess, and proposed that her consort should bear the title, and with her exercise the prerogatives, of Duke of Lorraine. A concordat was agreed to whereby the Estates were pledged to support the Duchess Isabelle, and to carry out Charles’s wishes.
Queen Yolande had seconded her uncle’s negotiations in a very womanly and sensible way. She communicated directly with good Duchess Margaret. She pointed out to her the mutual advantages of the marriage of the two children, and declared that such a union would heal the breach between the eastern and the western Sovereigns of France. Margaret, loving peace and holy things, was easily persuaded to reason with her husband; she submitted absolutely to the overpowering personality of the Queen. With Charles, Yolande had a stiffer fight, but she gathered up her strength, and in the end, lusty warrior that he was, he yielded up his defence to the tactful diplomacy of the good mother of Anjou. Woman’s wit once more, as it generally does, triumphed over man’s obstinacy.
Charles agreed to receive the young Prince, and judge for himself of his prepositions and qualifications. The result was beyond the Cardinal’s expectation, for the Duke declared himself charmed with the boy. He was, he said, ready to rescind the prohibitory clauses of his will, but he made it a condition that he should have the personal and unrestricted guardianship of the boy until he reached the age of fifteen. He desired René to proceed at once to Angers to obtain Queen Yolande’s consent to the matrimonial contract between himself and Princess Isabelle. Everything went merrily, like the marriage-bells which soon enough pealed forth all over Lorraine, Barrois, and Anjou, at the auspicious nuptials. The final arrangements were completed, and René and Isabelle were betrothed at the Castle of St. Mihiel, and on October 20, 1420, married at the Cathedral of Nancy by the Bishop of Toul, Henri de Ville, Duke Charles’s cousin. Immediately before the wedding, Cardinal-Duke Louis caused a herald to proclaim publicly, in the market-place of Nancy, René d’Anjou, Comte de Guise, Hereditary Duke of Bar, with the ad interim title of Marquis of Pont-à-Mousson.